Thursday, September 30, 2010

LONDON: Former president Pervez Musharraf warned Wednesday that Pakistan’s military could launch another coup, as he prepared to launch a new party and rejoin the country’s turbulent politics. The retired general said army chief Ashfaq Pervez Kayani could be forced to intervene against the goverment of President Asif Ali Zardari which he said had failed to tackle rampant extremist militancy and a crumbling economy. Musharraf — who himself came to power in a coup in 1999 and has lived in London since quitting in 2008 — cited as evidence a reported crisis meeting this week between Kayani, Zardari and Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani. Asked whether he thought there was a likelihood of a new coup, he told the Intelligence Squared debating forum in London: “Well, you see the photographs of the meeting with the president and the prime minister and I can assure you they were not discussing the weather. “There was a serious discussion of some kind or other and certainly at this moment all kinds of pressures must be on this army chief.” The 67-year-old said similar “pressures” when he was head of the army in the nuclear-armed Islamic republic from 1998 to 1999 had led him to launch the coup against then prime minister Nawaz Sharif. “In that one year Pakistan was going down and a number of people, including politicians, women, men, came to me telling me ‘Why are you not acting? Are you going to act for Pakistan’s good?” Musharraf said. “Now I am in a dilemma — the army chief, what does he do? There is no constitutional provision, what does he do?” Musharraf confirmed that he would launch a new political party in London on Friday to contest the next elections in 2013 but refused to say when he would return to Pakistan, where he could face treason charges. He said Zardari’s government had failed adequately to deal with Pakistan’s moribund economy, the threat from Taliban militants, and the after effects from devastating floods earlier this year. Pakistan’s powerful military has ruled the country for over half of the country’s existence since independence from Britain in 1947. —AFP. REFERENCE: Musharraf warns of new military coup in Pakistan Thursday, 30 Sep, 2010 http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/news/pakistan/14-musharraf-warns-of-new-military-coup-in-pakistan-zj-01

A quick look at this Grunt's Dirty Past.

Pakistan's president, Pervez Musharraf, is supposed to be our valued ally in the war on terrorism. But terror takes many forms, not all of them hijacked airplanes or bombed subways. For the vast majority of humans, terror comes in more mundane ways - like the violent hands that woke Dr. Shazia Khalid as she lay sleeping in her bed, and the abuse she's suffered at the hands of Mr. Musharraf's government ever since. I mentioned Dr. Shazia briefly in June when I wrote about General Musharraf's quasi-kidnapping and house arrest of Mukhtaran Bibi - the Pakistani rape victim who used compensation money to open schools and start a women's aid group. But at that time Dr. Shazia was still too terrified to speak out. Now, for the first time, Dr. Shazia has agreed to tell her full story, even though this will put herself and her loved ones at risk. Her tale is simultaneously an indictment of General Musharraf's duplicity, a window into the debasement that is the lot of women in much of the world - and a modern love story. Dr. Shazia, now 32, took a job by herself two years ago as a doctor at a Pakistan Petroleum plant in the wild Pakistani region of Baluchistan, after Pakistan Petroleum also promised a job for her husband there (that job never materialized). Dr. Shazia's family worried about her safety, but her residence was in a guarded compound and she felt strongly that the women in that region needed access to a female physician. Then on Jan. 2, Dr. Shazia woke up in the middle of the night, and at first she thought she was having a nightmare. "But this person was really pulling hard on my hair, and then he started pressing on my throat so I couldn't breathe. ... He tied the telephone cord around my throat. I resisted and struggled, and he beat me on the head with the telephone receiver. When I tried to scream, he said, 'Shut up - there's a man standing outside named Amjad, and he's got kerosene. If you scream, I'll take it and burn you alive.' ... Then he took my prayer scarf and he blindfolded me with it, and he took the telephone cord and tied my wrists, and he laid me down on the bed. I tried hard to fight but he raped me." The man spent the night in her room, beating her, casually watching television, raping her again and boasting about his powerful connections. A 35-page confidential report by a tribunal describes Dr. Shazia tumbling into the nurse's quarters that morning: "semiconscious ... with a swelling on her forehead and bleeding from nose and ear." Officials of Pakistan Petroleum rushed over and took decisive action.

"They told me to be quiet and not to tell anybody because it would ruin my reputation," Dr. Shazia remembers. One official warned that if she reported the crime, she could be arrested. That was a genuine risk. Under Pakistan's hudood laws, a woman who reports that she has been raped is liable to be arrested for adultery or fornication - since she admits to sex outside of marriage - unless she can provide four male eyewitnesses to the rape. Dr. Shazia wasn't sure she dared to report the crime, but she begged for permission to contact her family. So, she says, officials drugged her into a stupor and then confined her in a psychiatric hospital in Karachi. "They wanted to declare me crazy," Dr. Shazia said bitterly. "That's why they shifted me to a hospital for crazy people." Dr. Shazia's husband, Khalid Aman, was working as an engineer in Libya, but he finally was notified and rushed back 11 days later. Dr. Shazia, by then freed, couldn't face him, but he comforted her, told her that she had done nothing wrong, and insisted that they report the rape to the police so that the criminal could be caught. That was, perhaps, naïve, particularly because there were rumors that the police had identified the rapist as a senior army officer and were covering up for him. "When I treat rape victims, I tell the girls not to go to the police," Dr. Shershah Syed, a prominent gynecologist in Karachi, told me. "Because if she goes to the police, the police will rape her." That's the way the world works for anyone unfortunate enough to be born female in much of the world. In my next column, on Tuesday, I'll tell how our ally, General Musharraf, then inflicted a new round of terrorism on Dr. Shazia. REFERENCE: Another Face of Terror By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF Published: July 31, 2005 http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/31/opinion/31kristof.html

Members of the local Bugti clan saw a rape in their heartland as being a breach of their code of honour - especially when the alleged rapist was a captain in the despised national army. They attacked the gas field with rockets, mortars and thousands of AK-47 rounds. President Pervez Musharraf sent an uncompromising response: tanks, helicopters and an extra 4,500 soldiers to guard the installation. If the tribesmen failed to stop shooting, he warned on television, "they will not know what hit them". The Bugti leader, Nawab Akbar Bugti, says the question of Dr Shazia's rape comes first. "As long as the perpetrators of this heinous crime are not dealt with, there can be no talks," he said. Early this week President Musharraf's spokesman said an army captain was "under investigation" but had not been arrested. Meanwhile Baluch police have re-interviewed Dr Shazia - this time insinuating she was engaged in prostitution. REFERENCE: Pakistan's gas fields blaze as rape sparks threat of civil war Fight for provincial autonomy escalates after attack Declan Walsh in Karachi The Guardian, Monday 21 February 2005 00.01 GMT http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2005/feb/21/pakistan.declanwalsh

ATol: Was Dr Shazia a Baloch? Bugti: Honestly, I did not know about her ethnicity until somebody told me that she was not a Baloch, but hailed from Sindh. But it is beside the point. The Punjabi cannot understand our culture and codes. What respect we give to a women, irrespective of her caste, religion or ethnicity, no Punjabi can understand. The attack on the DSG camps was pure resentment against the humiliation of a woman, and nothing more. A Punjabi cannot understand these sentiments because they are alien to these concepts of the honor of a woman. You may have read about many incidents that happened in Punjab, reported in newspapers, that on the issue of personal enmity somebody entered into the house of his enemy and brought the women of his enemy naked in public, and the Punjabi public, instead of reacting or putting clothes on the naked women, clapped. We are alien to this kind of culture, and therefore when our men learned of the heinous crime they bombed the criminals' nest [DSG] and we say, "Get lost back to your Punjab and do whatever you like, but not on our land." REFERENCE: Tribals looking down a barrel in Balochistan By Syed Saleem Shahzad Jan 15, 2005 http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/GA15Df07.html

But Dr. Shazia Khalid, through all her tears, guilt and self-doubt, pushed for something more: punishment for the man who raped her. In my column on Sunday, I described how local authorities reacted after Dr. Shazia was raped early this year: they drugged her and confined her to a psychiatric hospital to hush her up. It didn't work, and the incident provoked unrest in the wild area of Baluchistan, where the rape occurred, because of rumors that the rapist was not only an outsider, but also an army captain. President Pervez Musharraf became determined to make the embarrassment disappear. So the authorities locked up Dr. Shazia and her husband, Khalid Aman, keeping them under house arrest for two months. Then officials began to hint that Dr. Shazia was a loose woman, perhaps even a prostitute - presumably as a way to pressure her and her husband to keep quiet. Dr. Shazia, mortified, tried to kill herself. Mr. Khalid and their adopted son, Adnan, stopped her. Meanwhile, the family's patriarch, Mr. Khalid's grandfather, sent word that because Dr. Shazia had been raped, she was "kari" - a stain on the family's honor - and must be killed or at least divorced. Then, Mr. Khalid said, his grandfather began gathering a mob to murder Dr. Shazia. REFERENCE: A Pakistani Rape, and a Pakistani Love Story By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF Published: August 2, 2005 http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/02/opinion/02kristof.html?_r=3&n=Top/Opinion/Editorials+and+Op-Ed/Op-Ed/Columnists/Nicholas+D+Kristof

It is very strange that during any self-created Crisis by Musharraf {e.g. Dr. Shazia Rape/Baluchistan insurgency}, Dr Shahid Masood ‘found’ himself in the centre of it e.g. nobody had that access to Dr. Shazia, Akber Bugti, Attaullah Mengal and Bugti’s grandson Brahamdagh Bugti like Dr Shahid Masood. You might have noticed that when the Parliamentary Team wanted to go to meet Bugti in Dera Bugti, Baluchistan the Pakistan Armed Forces refused clearance but isn’t it strange that Dr. Shahid ‘successfully’ conducted detailed interviews of Bugtis and not only that he recited letters from Dr. Shazia and even if that was not enough he travelled with Dr. Shazia and her husband from Islamabad to London or Dubai. Not a single noted journalist in Pakistan was successful enough to meet with Dr. Shazia while she was in impregnable security in Karachi. But years of blind following of everything we are told, we have become so pathetic that nobody questions as to why there is always Dr Shahd Masood in the middle of conspiracy created by General Musharraf?

* Email claims TV anchor had role in forcing rape victim Dr Shazia out of country * Masood denied UK asylum for fraudulent practices - LAHORE: Noted TV show host Dr Shahid Masood is surrounded by yet another controversy after the surfacing of allegations regarding his role in forcing Dr Shazia Khalid out of the country. Shazia had alleged that an army officer had raped her in a hospital while she was serving in Balochistan in 2005. The controversy is associated with an email circulated with the name of noted defence analyst Dr Ayesha Siddiqa. The email said Dr Shahid Masood and another person, Mohsin Baig, harassed Dr Shazia, warning her that she and her family would be assassinated if they did not leave the country immediately and if the proceedings of her case were not halted in Pakistan. Dr Shazia was quoted as saying that Dr Shahid and Mohsin Baig made her rush out of the country. Daily Times tried contacting Dr Shahid a number of times for comments, but failed to get through. British refusal: Also, documents obtained from reliable sources in the British Home Office revealed that Masood was denied asylum in the United Kingdom for fraudulent practices.

LAHORE: Iftikhar Ahmed, the host of Geo TV show ‘Jawabdeh’, resigned on Sunday after the channel administration refused to air an interview with former Pakistan Television managing director Shahid Masood. The interview was recorded last week and was being advertised in the group’s The News and Jang newspapers. On Sunday, the Geo TV administration seized the original recording and declined to run it. Iftikhar Ahmed told Aaj Kal he was being pressured to censor parts of the interview but he did not compromise on principles and resigned. aaj kal report REFERENCE: Geo ‘Jawabdeh’ host Iftikhar Ahmed resigns in protest Monday, November 17, 2008 http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2008\11\17\story_17-11-2008_pg7_34

Real Face of Dr Shahid Masood

Dr Shahid Masood is basically a Sanctimonious Prick and a first class intellectual Dishonest, he started his career from ARY when it's no good founder Haji Abdul Razzaq Yaqub aka Gold (a money launderer and Gold smuggler) was facing Accountability Cases and when Shahid was there he used to sermon everyone and used to say things for which he now attack others if they say the same things on Military, Fall of Dhaka etc.etc and he was very fond of Dr A Q Khan and attacked Musharraf for forcing A Q Khan to admit proliferation. He later became pragmatic and became the fast friend of not only Musharraf but also joined even worse Bordello "The Jang Group and GEO" and exploited the Lal Masjid issue and wrote False Columns in Daily Jang and The News and rascals like Mazhar Abbas, Hamid Mir, Ansar Abbasi, Ahmed Noorani, Shaheen Sehbai , Kamran Khan and Mir Shakil ran campaign in his favour , therefore don't just blame Dr Shahid but every Media House for running amok and for ruining sanity in Pakistan ! Watch and enjoy

Dr Shahid Masood's Journey from ARY to GEO

News are sometimes wrong, says Shahid Masood after SBP refutes claim (Dunya News TV 26 Jan 2018) Frauds, Intellectual Dishonest and Masquerades like Mazhar Abbas, Hamid Mir, Ahmad Noorani, Ansar Abbasi , Talat Hussain and their head-pope Mir Shakil ur Rehman and their 3rd rate News group Jang which has accommodated Touts like Kamran Khan and established Yellow Journalism in Pakistan and institutionalized Corruption in Journalism cannot just put all the blame of yellow journalism on a third rate Dr Shahid Masood (worse than a police informer) , Jang Group is equally responsible for ruining the journalism in Pakistan

According to the documents, he travelled to the UK on April 26, 2000, with his family. Masood sought asylum in Britain on May 3, 2000, but his request was denied by the British authorities who stated, “On June 9, 2000, a decision was made to give directions for his removal from the United Kingdom as mentioned in Section 16(1) of the Immigration Act 1971 and to refuse to grant asylum under paragraph 336 of HC 395.” Paragraph 336 of HC 395 authorises British officials concerned to remove any individual who enters the UK illegally. While giving the reasons for the rejection, the authorities wrote, “He claimed to have entered the United Kingdom on April 26, 2000, using a Pakistani passport of which he was not the rightful owner, accompanied by his daughter and his sister and her two children.” Dr Shahid attached a statement of evidence form SEF3 dated May 16, 2000, asylum interview record SEF4 dated June 5, 2000, and other documents supporting his application. The document mentioned Home Office Reference Number M1045053, and Port Reference Number EDD/00/4390. REFERENCE: Another controversy surrounds Dr Shahid Masood Saturday, June 19, 2010 http://archives.dailytimes.com.pk/national/19-Jun-2010/another-controversy-surrounds-dr-shahid-masood

Dr Shahid Masood and Mohsin Baig came from Islamabad to see us in Karachi. They told us they had met with the high authorities there and that we had no choice but to leave Pakistan as our lives were in danger.

They asked us where we wanted to go. We argued that we did not wish to leave, but they insisted our lives were in serious danger and we could not stay in Pakistan. We said Canada was the logical choice. I have a sister-in-law and a brother-in-law and family friends there, but I had never been out of Pakistan before. So they brought us the forms for Canadian immigration which they said they would submit on our behalf. Not much time had passed since the incident so I was still in shock. REFERENCE: Shazia Khalid and the fight for justice in Pakistan Zainab Mahmood, Shazia Khalid, and Maryam Maruf, 25 September 2005 http://www.opendemocracy.net/democracy-protest/pakistan_2868.jsp

Dr Shazia Khalid is the victim of the much-publicised Sui rape case that precipitated a bloody confrontation between the Bugti tribesmen and the Pakistan Army in January 2005. The people of Sui town were almost unanimous in their belief that Shazia was raped by Captain Imaad, an officer in the contingent of the army’s Defence Security Guards unit posted at the gas installations of the Pakistan Petroleum Limited (PPL) in Sui. However, General Pervez Musharraf denied the claim, insisting that Imaad was innocent. This gave rise to speculations that Shazia may have been a pawn in a conspiracy by antisocial elements to malign the Pakistan Army. Even so, the most glaring feature of the episode were the attempts by the PPL management and the security agencies to thwart the investigation. No headway was made in the case until the evidence was destroyed, leading to suspicions that the authorities were sacrificing transparency in order to protect the image of the army. REFERENCE: “How can they conduct an investigation when they have destroyed the evidence?” By Dr. Shazia Khalid http://www.dawn.com/herald/sep05.htm

KARACHI, Feb 3: The role of the Pakistan Petroleum Limited was disappointing in the alleged rape case in Sui, the husband of Dr Shazia Khalid said in an interview with Dawn here on Thursday. Khalid Aman, a petroleum engineer working for a Chinese petroleum company in Libya, accused PPL officials of putting pressure on her wife to keep silent on the alleged incident. She was advised to call it a simple robbery incident. He said that even the brother of the doctor was not informed about the incident on the day it took place and told about it only after Dr Shazia was taken to Karachi from Sui and admitted to a psychiatric hospital three days later. Mr Aman said that the PPL management had also advised the brother not to pursue the rape case and just have a robbery case registered. Mr Aman said: "We need justice and want the man responsible to be arrested and punished in accordance with law."

About his wife being declared a 'kari', Mr Aman said: "We belong to Khuhra Town, taluka Gambat, district Khairpur. My wife's family migrated from there to Karachi some 40 years back. My grandfather lives there and he has been putting pressure to declare Dr Shazia as a 'kari' and that I should part ways with her. I am with my wife but she was very disturbed after his statements appeared in a section of press and we now feel insecure." Mr Aman denied that a jirga was held at his native town and said there were just some statements from his grandfather that were published in a section of the press. Recalling the night between Jan 2 and 3, Mr Aman said his wife was on call and had left her room at around 7.30pm on Jan 2, taken a round of the ward, and came back to her room after half an hour. She offered her prayers, watched TV, and went to bed by 10pm. He quoted Dr Shazia as saying: "I was fast asleep when I felt someone pulling my hair. I woke up and got frightened. Somebody grabbed my neck and did not allow me even to move.

I managed to pick up the receiver of the phone on the bedside table, but he snatched it from my hand, hit my head with it, and tied my wrists with the telephone wire. He also made a noose round my neck with the telephone wire and tightened it so that I had a problem in breathing. "I resisted but he overpowered me. I then begged him to leave me for the sake of Allah. I asked him as to what my fault was and why was he doing this to me. He ordered me to keep quiet otherwise a man was standing outside with kerosene and he had a matchbox. He said if I raised an alarm, he would set me on fire. I could not see him as it was dark and he had blindfolded me with my dupatta. He beat me brutally, then assaulted me and wrapped me in a blanket." Mr Aman said that after an hour, the intruder again assaulted his wife. The doctor begged him again to leave her alone. The man replied: 'It is now 3 o'clock and I will leave in the morning.' He ordered her to keep silent. He asked for cash and jewellery from her, and she told him that the cash and jewellery were in the cupboard.

She heard the sound of the cupboard being opened. She again asked him to leave her room but he did not say anything. After a while, she heard the sound of a match being struck. She got afraid of being killed and started reciting the kalima and other Quranic verses. She again begged the man to spare her and said: "You have destroyed my life, now why are you setting me on fire?" Mr Aman said that according to his wife, the man did not reply and she heard some sounds from the bathroom. Then the TV was switched on and she heard channels being changed. The man watched TV till the Fajr call to prayer. She heard the outer steel gate being opened and closed. She remained in bed for 15 to 20 minutes and then tried to compose herself.

She removed the covering from her eyes first with her tied hands and later she managed to cut the telephone wire with a pair of scissors. She unlocked the door as her keys had not been touched. She went straight to the nursing hostel and knocked on the door of a nurse, Sakina. Sakina's husband opened the door and found the lady doctor badly injured. Sakina then informed the administration of the PPL and the DCMO, Dr Mohammad Ali, Dr Irshad, Dr Saima Siddiqui, nurse Firdous and Salimullah came to see her in Sakina's room. She asked them to call her brother and his wife and she would tell them everything. She was told that they could not be called to the Sui gas field. The chief medical officer, Usman Wadha, advised her not to report anything as the defence security guards (DSG) and police would investigate, and she would have to appear in court and it would lead to a lot of hue and cry.

She was later given an injection and she became drowsy. She was told not to see anyone. She was kept in Sakina's room and not in the hospital and even her injuries were not treated. On the night of Jan 4, Dr Irshad and his wife took Dr Shazia to Kandhkot, where they stayed overnight and in the morning of Jan 5, she was shifted to a psychiatric hospital in Karachi, her husband said. Later, her brother was informed, and on Jan 11, Dr Aman said he came to Pakistan from Libya when an examination was conducted. He said Dr Shazia had joined the PPL Sui gas field on June 23, 2003. During her interview, she was asked about her husband, and she had told them that her husband was a petroleum engineer. "I was called for an interview and asked if I would join PPL if I agreed to be posted at Sui. I expressed my happiness over this, but I was not appointed", Dr Aman said. "The company on one way or the other refused all the time whenever I applied for a job and finally I got a job with a Chinese company on June 23, 2004. I was first sent for training to Sudan for two months and then to Libya." REFERENCE: Rape victim under pressure to keep mum By Arman Sabir 04 February 2005 Friday 24 Zilhaj 1425 http://www.dawn.com/2005/02/04/nat6.htm